Nostalgia with a Twist: Gummi Bears

Welcome back to round 2 of Nostalgia with a Twist special Disney Afternoon special. Instead of picking the shows at random, I figured it would be best to tackle them as they aired/debut.

So our first show on this trip is Gummi Bears.

This show should probably not be confused with the yummy candy treats. Also, and I could be completely wrong on this, one of the few shows on The Disney Afternoon that wasn’t based in some ways on an already existing Disney license/character. Again, I could be wrong. You don’t expect me to do research for these things?

Anyhow, we are so so off-base at this point.

So let’s jump right in on the Gummi Bears intro!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRTSZZgCUik&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

So of course the first thing the intro does is prove me wrong, apparently the FULL title of the show is Disney’s adventures of the Gummi Bears (I capped it how they did), I think Gummi Bears works just as well and is MUCH shorter to type.

We get a shot of some random castle. After doing these for a bit (granted still in single digits), its curious to see what companies pick as their opening shot. I mean a shot of a castle really tells me nothing. Except maybe a general time. I mean there aren’t many castles around nowadays, at least I haven’t seen any.

And now we get some horses and I would assume soldiers riding out of the castle. I should note this entire time, the GIANT logo with the name of the show has remained on the screen and in NO WAY distracting.

So we skip from the horses leaving the castle to a giant red dragon. The dragon doesn’t throw me for a loop as much as the fact that he has a mustache. He also has a handlebar beard. I don’t get it. I mean someone thought it would be a good idea to have a giant red dragon sporting more facial hair than any of the audience members?

Right about now, this is an intro for the ADHD viewer, we now have a bear dodging the dragon’s fire attack.

So in 6 seconds (yes, we’re only 6 seconds in), we’ve had a shot of a castle, horses and soldiers leaving said castles, a giant red dragon with a ton of facial hair and now a bear. Again, only 6 seconds in.

This is just getting ridiculous, we now have a yellow-ish (I don’t know) bear being attacked by two ogres and only one of them has a club. Of course they aren’t too bright. Are ogres ever bright? I’m sure someone would mention Shrek but he starred in 4 of those movies so not gonna say he is too intelligent.

Now we get one of those “ironic” shots where the song says “Faithful and friendly,” we have two bears with one having his arm around the other and the other wanting nothing to do with him. So gonna assume the one who wants nothing to do with him is the tough and gruff member of the team.

Random shot of a bear running through a door. At some point, I may need to separate said bears because I believe I’ve accounted for four of them so far, and my best description has been yellow-ish one.

And in a shot that should be sending parents to the FCC, there is a pink bear chasing a child through the forest/woods. And I’m like 100% sure the bear has a sword in its hand. The worst part about it would be that the child appears to be enjoying itself. Oh Stephen Colbert give us strength!

I really need to lay off the drugs Disney gives out, there are now gators chasing the bear who is chasing the human, but the gators are wearing Friar outfits?

Okay so we have 6 bears walking along a log above the water. I guess would be a good time to differentiate these bears. We have giant hat bear, we have yellow bear, we have pink stalker bear, let’s go with mama bear, gruff and badass bear and crap another big hat bear.

Oh the song is so witty, as the bears walk across the logs, “Marching along,” I mean creative.

Oh no, the bears have apparently found a bottomless pit underneath the water? Wouldn’t the water sink down into the hole, unless there’s some sort of science I’m missing here.

And if you could believe it, took us 20 seconds to hear the first mention of the title of the show in the song. And apparently the bears have magically bouncing powers, either that or they are really well decorated basketballs.

The super intelligent ogres are back, and looks like they are mating as one more joins their ranks as they stare on in amusement (or perhaps are stoned, who knows with Disney). The bears are just randomly bouncing around now, just for fun I would imagine.

Random human, okay so we saw this with Bucky O’Hare. Is there some rule about needing an random human when dealing with a pre-dominantly animal based show?

And now stalker pink bear is playing bowling by rolling over the ogres. Poor ogres are the true victims in this show!

Oh snap! Big hat bear has apparently built a rollercoaster to get into their base. Let me tell you, I would LOVE to take a rollercoaster into my house everyday. I’d probably leave and re-enter my house just to get on the friggin ride. Oh man I’m just thinking of the possibilities if more places of business had a rollercoaster entrance.

Now even the random human child is picking on the ogres? Really? Poor ogres get no respect. And why does it look like they were attacked by a giant ham.

Oh looks like the random human child has found himself a random human mate. Well that worked out well. He can’t strike out if he is the only guy around.

Giant magic book. Now we are getting somewhere. You may note that I haven’t really touched on the lyrics of the song that much. And really its because the visuals do such a strong job of telling some story. I’m not sure what that story is, but boy does it tell it.

And of course, I say that just as the song explains part of the plot. Apparently there extra bouncy ability comes from the “gummi berry juice” To me it looks like really thick soup.

And we get even more ogre abuse from an even more random adult male human figure. Poor poor ogres.

Nice, now a random shot of vultures. I’ve used random a lot in this trip and I think because its the best way to describe what I’ve been seeing.

Oh that sucks apparently you don’t take the secret rollercoaster out of the base. I mean I guess it kind of makes sense, would be expensive to have a coaster going both ways, but still!

I really am afraid of pink stalker bear. I’m not quite sure if its a boy or a girl, but that smirk with its sword will give me nightmares for weeks.

Family photo time! Apparently there gummiberry juice is wearing off or something because they were all able to stand still for a second or so.

Come now! His cape is also magically?

And we end with a 3 second long look at the logo from the beginning but this time burnt on the trunk of a tree. And the lyrics wrapping up telling us they are the Gummi Bears.

All in all, that was a rather bizarre intro. It told me so much, but so little about the show. I’m not really sure if it would make me watch the show. The ogre abuse was horrid. I think someone will need to stand up for their rights!

Based on the intro, I would recommend passing on this show.